Javier Milei, the TV commentator who won Argentina's presidential election by wielding a chainsaw, will take office today in Buenos Aires. A new stage begins in the second largest country in Latin America and the fourth in terms of population, after Brazil, Mexico and Colombia. Many people in the world will turn their attention to Argentina to see the effects of a drastic cut in public spending in an attempt to curb inflation of 140%.
Unprecedented cuts. Dollarization of the economy. Total privatization of the public sector. Closure of the central bank. Maximum reduction of the governmental structure, strengthening of public security and prohibition of abortion. This is the core of the winning bid in the presidential elections, held in a double round. Milei won the ballot with 56% of the vote. Peronism, ubiquitous political movement, great phenomenon of the 20th century very difficult to describe with European categories, seems to have lost overwhelmingly. The world is watching.
In Argentina, the shock doctrine will be applied with 40% of poor people. The last time the Chicago School made an essay of these characteristics was with the help of bayonets in Chile, after the coup of 1973. In Argentina, the ultraliberal doctrine will operate this time in a regime of public liberties with the electoral support of a significant part of the potential affected. Scenes from the Weimar Republic on the banks of the Río de la Plata. The world is watching.
In Argentina, the ability of the United States to regain power in Latin America will be tested, in the face of the progressive advancement of the People's Republic of China as the main trading partner of the large Latin American countries from which it buys raw materials on a large scale. In addition to being a large producer of soybeans, cereals and meat, Argentina is rich in lithium, a strategic material for the viability of electric cars. 46% of the reserves of this mineral, needed to manufacture automotive batteries, are found in a geographical triangle formed by Argentina, Bolivia and Chile at the axis of the great Andean mountain range. Argentina also has Vaca Muerta, a gigantic deposit of shale oil and shale gas, hydrocarbons that must be extracted from the rock using fracking techniques, hydraulic fracturing of the subsoil. The world is watching.
In Argentina, the sustainability of the story will be tested as a decisive instrument for political mobilization in the hyper-connected world. Milei and his sponsors have resorted to an extreme story in the face of an extreme situation: breaking everything to rebuild the country on a new economic basis. The majority of Argentines have voted in favor of the shock and now we have to see what it consists of.
In the coming months we will see what the correlation is between idea and action. What is the depth of the shock and the precautions that are taken to avoid a tragic social explosion. What is the degree of truth in the words of Milei during the campaign, before being reined in, during the second round of the election, by the Argentine conventional right, headed by ex-president Mauricio Macri. Milei, right-wing revolutionary, pioneer of a new stage in Latin America and beyond Latin America, or electrifying mask with which the Argentine establishment has been able to articulate a popular base capable of winning the elections to Peronism, to make the adjustments that Macri did not was able to carry out between 2015 and 2019.
The story and its limits. We would be facing a colossal experiment in mass psychology in a country on the brink of the abyss. The show is fascinating and the world is watching. In all societies on the defensive, the energy today comes from the right wing.
After a succession of victories by the left in most Latin American countries (Mexico, Bolivia, Chile, Colombia and Brazil, plus the traumatic experience of Peru), Milei represents the counterpoint. In front of Mexico, where the left can win again in 2024, the Argentina of Milei, herald of a possible return of Donald Trump to the White House. Milei can also resurrect Jair Bolsonaro in Brazil and attracts the attention of the entire European far-right ahead of the elections to the Eurochamber in June 2024.
The Hungarian Prime Minister, Viktor Orbán, attended the inauguration. Volodymyr Zelensky has also traveled to Buenos Aires, in search of Ukraine's first major ally in Latin America. (At the last EU-Latin America-Caribbean summit, held in Brussels in September, the main countries on the other side of the Atlantic vetoed Zelenski's presence at the meeting). Emmanuel Macron is also in Buenos Aires. Where the world moves, France is there.
Spain will be represented by King Felipe VI, who was received at the Casa Rosada yesterday, and by the Secretary of State for Ibero-America, Juan Fernández Trigo. The Central Government has not sent any minister there, which is an obvious political gesture of coldness and distance. The Minister of Foreign Affairs, José Manuel Albares, is busy at the Council of General Affairs of the European Union on Tuesday in Brussels, where a decision should be made on the official use of Catalan in the EU, and then he will travel to Morocco. The Popular Party will be represented by deputy Cayetana Álvarez de Toledo, whose mother is Argentine and with strong ties to the country, and by Esperanza Aguirre, former president of the Community of Madrid. No member of the executive commission of the PP will be in Buenos Aires. Here is the expression of a certain caution. The only Spanish party leader going to the inauguration is Santiago Abascal, president of Vox. Abascal was received yesterday by Milei.
Milei is an undisputed icon of the extreme right in Spain. Vox supported him when he went with the chainsaw in motion promising to put an end to the Peronist caste. The PP observes. Isabel Díaz Ayuso supported him in the second round, without pronouncing his name. Alberto Núñez Feijóo knows Argentine politics, since more than 160,000 Galician citizens live in the country with full voting rights in Spain. The PP is about to call early elections in Galicia, perhaps for the second half of February, and the vote of Galicians resident in Argentina will be important. Núñez Feijóo, who has worked on this vote for more than fourteen years, is careful: among the victims of the Milei shock there will be quite a few Spaniards with the right to vote at home.
The Milei phenomenon radiates and will radiate on Spanish politics. It can be the herald of a social catastrophe or the messenger of a completely uninhibited right, capable of shaking the foundations of the European Union if Trump returns to the White House. Argentina is again very important for Spain.
